Many consumers prefer that the handles of household refrigerators have a soft feel or touch. For years this was accomplished, at least to some degree, by use of multi-component assemblies including inserts which were soft to the touch which were assembled using screws or other fasteners.
A few years ago refrigerator handles were introduced which had a metallic stiffener surrounded by a body of urethane. More specifically the stiffener was over-molded with a two component reactive urethane formulation with an in-mold aliphatic urethane coating. The in-mold coating was used to cover the porosity of the molded urethane, to provide ultra violet protection to the urethane and to enhance the appearance of the handle. This required a relatively complicated molding process, using multiple materials and the handles were not uniformly "soft". For example the underside of such handles normally are not as thick as the top or front. Such relatively thin undersides tended to feel harder.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved handle assembly for household refrigerators.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such an improved handle assembly which provides a "soft" feel to the user.
It is still another object to provide such an improved "soft" feel handle assembly which is simple in construction and flexible in application.